Service Guaranteed
by Zeff N Company
Summary: AU. “I’m trying to help a customer clear his private data,” he stated. “Could you stop playing with my balls, please?”


"Hello, Information and Communications department. How may I help you?"

The rest was a soft drone – a mix of warbled noises of office machines stoically doing their duties, phones shrilly demanding to be picked up, and the occasional mumbled greeting from one drowsy colleague to another over cubicle walls. In his small white commercially-approved enclosure, the webmaster's intern listened with practiced solemnity and understanding to the customer who was in the most dire of straits because the screen's font size was too small.

"Calm down, sir. Go to the menu…do you see 'View'? It's just under the long blue bar, third button from the left…that's right, click it…find 'Text Size'…can't find it? Don't panic, it's there. Just scroll down…good. Now click it… Now click 'Normal'."

Another crisis averted, the intern automatically extended a finger and tapped a button once.

"…hello, Information and Communications department. How may I help you? Yes… …please hold."

Turning the receiver away, the intern pushed his chair back a little and stared under the desk. "...hey."

"Hmm?" a voice answered from below said desk.

"I'm trying to help a customer clear his private data," he stated. "Could you stop playing with my balls, please?"

"Don't be such a miser; I'm positively bored," the voice countered.

"Don't you have your own balls to play with?"

"Balls are always more fun when they belong to someone else. Besides, yours are nice and firm between my fingers."

"Do I take it yours are not performing as well as they should?"

"I refuse to dignify that with a response."

There was a muffled "click", and the next time the intern brought the receiver back to his ear, there was nothing but the dial tone. With a satisfied air, he put it down once and for all. "Guess he's figuring it out for himself."

"You know," the voice piped up again, "there are plenty of other ways to get them off the phone."

"I'm sure there are. Now give me back my balls." And in a few seconds of reluctant hesitation, a hand emerged from under the desk to produce two tennis balls. The intern took them, and placed one on each stand by one of the cubicle walls against his desk. Just as they had settled, however, a long, slender blade slammed forcefully through his desk. The stands fell over, and the two balls rolled and tumbled swiftly back under the table once more. The intern stared openly at the long blade that extended _very_ far up, and the hand that was fully extended to hold its hilt.

"Leon," the owner rumbled. "Has Cloud passed through here?"

"Sephiroth," the intern – Leon – answered blandly. "How did you get that thing pass security, and do I really want to know?"

"Knowing you…no. Now answer the question."

"No, he hasn't." In response, the senior administrator leveled a long, hard stare at him from his greater height.

"You wouldn't lie to me, would you?"

"Have I ever lied to you?"

"Well-"

"And succeeded?"

"No."

"There's your answer."

With a curse, Sephiroth yanked the blade out of the desk again, leaving a rather prominent cavity in the cheap processed wood. "Listen, if he does pass through-"

"I'll know where to find you," Leon replied solemnly. It achieved its usual result, as the senior administrator nodded in approval.

"My thanks. If there is anything I can do for you, just say the word."

"…anything?"

"Anything."

"Could you…put that sword down?"

"Hmm?" Sephiroth turned and seemed to notice his weapon for the first time. "…oh, you mean Masamune. Of course, I will be happy to oblige."

"_Thanks_, s_-_"

"Right after I kill Cloud."

"_Son of a-_!"

"No, really; I won't take more than a few minutes."

Leon ground his teeth in annoyance. "Sephiroth, for the past nine months, you've been trying to kill Cloud, and every time you not only miss him completely, but hit _everyone else_…!"

"Now, you can't prove that-"

"The exploding photocopier, the falling air-conditioner, the three large holes you smashed through the ceiling, the power surge that set the director's pants on fire…" Leon counted off without so much as skipping a beat, "and need I remind you that the QA lead's hair will never be flat again?"

"Zack looks better with spikes, anyway," Sephiroth digressed; and from the look on Leon's face, he seemed to agree.

"Yet my point still stands."

The senior administrator frowned. "Are you questioning my ability?"

"I'm questioning the rationale that authorizes purchase and illegal smuggling of a seven-foot-long blade into an office for the faint hope of even poking your blond adversary," the intern deadpanned evenly.

"Did you hear what he called my mother? That woman is a _saint_."

"…isn't there _any_ way any of us can convince you to let this one go?"

"You could turn him over."

"…just…_try_ not to skewer anything important this time, will you, sir?"

Finally given the consent to keep going, Sephiroth soon disappeared around the corner. As Leon breathed a heavy sigh of relief, a tennis ball popped through the hole in his desk and rolled to stop by his coffee mug.

"You'd make a good lawyer," the voice commented, as the second tennis ball popped through the hole as well.

"He asked if you passed through here; he didn't ask if you were under my desk," the intern answered easily. "And just because I know where to find him, doesn't mean I actually will."

The voice hummed cheerfully. "My twisted knave in shining armor."

"You realize that if he _does_ come back and find you," Leon replied. "I'm not only going to duck out of the way, but I'm also going to point at your skewered ass and laugh."

"And so does chivalry suffer a most tragic death…" and Cloud – the other intern of the Information and Communications department – slid out from his cover, still lying comfortably on his back. Suddenly, there was a terrified shriek that rang through the office, and he turned his head slightly.

"Honey, what was that?"

"That," Leon replied with a leer, "was your insurance package being activated."

Encouraged by a beckoning wave, Cloud got up and joined Leon in looking over the cubicle wall. In a blur of silver, black and gold, the senior administrator swooped pass, his blade up and straight forward as he chased a small blond figure down the walkway.

"How cute – it's my very own doppelgänger," Cloud mused. "Where'd you find him?"

"He said he was representing Twilight Town Sports Hall to deliver the payment package they owe the company, and I told him to come up here."

Sure enough, a relatively large brown parcel sailed through the air to land on the online producer's desk with an ominous "thud".

"Customer satisfaction…" Cloud concluded.

"…on a stick," Leon concurred.

As Sephiroth relentlessly pursued his quarry, the two of them shot through the doors of the meeting room. Within seconds, the screaming increased its volume tenfold.

"Something tells me that we're not getting jobs here when we graduate."

"Ey, the scenery sucks anyway."

Eventually, even the hysterical screaming died down, and the usual drone became audible again.

As the two detached themselves from their perch on the abused desk, Leon turned to Cloud. "Weren't you supposed to answer twenty-one calls by six?"

The latter shrugged with callous disregard. "I'm on it."

Back at Cloud's cubicle on the programmer's side of the cube farm, sat the phone and a tape recorder.

**"You have reached the Information and Communications department,"** it repeated for the fifteenth time that day, **"now shut up and reboot.**

**"Have a nice day."**

* * *

_**References taken from: **__Dilbert__**, Jeff Dunham's ventriloquist performances, and **__**machinima . com. Based on Damion's stories about his own internship.**_

_**In accordance with the Radiant Garden Humane Society, no photocopiers, air-conditioners, ceilings, or short blond boys were harmed in the production of this story.**_

_**Unfortunately, we were unable to get the pants any coverage; quoting our director, "unattainable insurance policies are the best kind".**_


End file.
